the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 6, 2007
A crowded interstate highway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River on August 1. At this writing, five are known dead, with many more still missing.
This “Erector Set” bridge was dangerous when it was built in 1967, but was “grandfathered in” under outmoded construction standards. Since at least 1990, engineers have always rated it “structurally deficient.” But government officials and their appointees claimed that replacement would be too expensive. So they rolled the dice and put off the work that should have been done.
It’s too bad the dice-rollers weren’t on that bridge where they let others die.
This bridge wasn’t very special. There are 756 others just like it across the country.
But this old bridge is the least of the problems. The American Society of Civil Engineers has for years warned of the decay of all of the structures society relies on to function. Not only are twenty-seven% of the nation’s bridges, 77,000 of them, rated “structurally deficient”–the same rating as the bridge that fell. The ASCE grades the nation’s entire infrastructure as D! An enormous part of the infrastructure we depend on–highways, railways, dams, bridges, levees, electrical structure, sewer systems, water systems–are aged long past their design life. And they carry much more load–truck weight, sewage, water, or power–than they were ever designed for.
The collapsed bridge is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole infrastructure is composed of hundreds of disasters waiting to happen.
If this is so well known, why hasn’t it been fixed? Why isn’t there a reconstruction program?
Money. They tell us there’s not enough.
What would it cost? 1.6 trillion dollars. A lot of money, yes, but just about what the government will spend making war on Iraq and Afghanistan.
This society has accumulated wealth far, far beyond what anyone would have dreamed of in 1967, when the Minneapolis bridge was built.
But the wealth is concentrated at the topmost levels and increases there by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, for a supposed “lack of funds,” a bridge falls here, a steam line explodes there, city water mains periodically burst, every slight storm brings a power outage, storm sewers overflow and even levees fail.
The labor of the entire society produces its wealth. That wealth should be put to work, serving the interests of the entire society.
Aug 6, 2007
Doctors who provide abortions are adding an extra procedure to late-term abortions that they admit increases the risk, pain and inconvenience to the woman–because a federal law upheld by the Supreme Court might be used to make doctors liable for prosecution.
The procedure increases the likelihood of vomiting and other bodily distresses for the woman; in addition, as with any extra procedure, it increases the risk involved; and, since it must be administered 24 hours ahead of the abortion procedure, it forces women to make two trips in two days.
Doctors are increasingly using a drug called digoxin to stop the fetus’ heart before the abortion procedure. The drug has been used for this purpose in the past, in some abortions after 24 weeks where it was medically required.
Now, though, doctors are using the drug in many more kinds of abortion procedures, as early as 18 weeks–purely to fend off possible prosecution under the so-called “Partial Birth Abortion Act.” The Act outlaws a procedure medically known as Intact Dilation and Extraction; but it is also worded vaguely enough that it could be used to outlaw any abortion in the second or third trimesters where a living fetus is extracted.
These doctors are making decisions based not on what is medically advisable, but on the legal consequences of right-wing political grandstanding.
The religious right has already forced through laws requiring parental consent, waiting periods and other limits on a woman’s right to an abortion. All these limitations push some abortions from the first trimester, when they are extremely safe and quick, to later and later in the pregnancy, when they become far more risky.
And then cynical politicians begin outlawing later-term abortions that become more necessary because of the earlier restrictions!
Every step of the way, the message sent by such hypocritical politicians and right-wing activists is clear: women who seek an abortion will be made to suffer–or even die–for the sake of reactionary moral views.
Aug 6, 2007
In 2004, a law allowed big companies to bring home their profits from overseas investments at a much lower 5.25% tax rate instead of the official 35% rate. Supposedly, the companies would invest their profits here, creating jobs.
The pharmaceutical industry has made the biggest use of the law, bringing home 100 billion dollars. Pfizer alone brought home 36 billion dollars. How many jobs did it create? Actually, none. It laid off 8,000 workers in 2006 and announced another 10,000 layoffs for this year.
That’s text book economics–capitalism is functioning just the way its apologists applaud!
Aug 6, 2007
Most if not all states have special tax-break programs for companies that invest in poor areas. Given fancy names like “enterprise zones,” the programs are boosted by politicians and business as a way to create jobs.
In New York, state auditors recently sent warnings to 3,000 out of 10,000 businesses getting these breaks. The 3,000 have taken the state’s money and created few or no jobs. And these 3,000 are only the “very worst” freeloaders!
In total, the 10,000 businesses have cost New York taxpayers over 3 billion dollars since 2000. The total number of full-time jobs created? Fewer than 45,000–since 1986!
Tax breaks for “job creation” are nothing more than shady schemes to give away taxpayers’ money to well-connected businessmen.
Aug 6, 2007
Wayne State University in Detroit announced it is raising tuition 18% this fall. Other public universities in Michigan have also increased tuition dramatically. Oakland University raised its tuition 14%, while Michigan State hiked theirs 10%.
Michigan schools are hardly alone. Public universities in Illinois, Colorado, and Oklahoma all plan similar increases. Nationwide, the average tuition at four-year, public universities was $5,836 last year, an increase of 42% just since 2002-2003. And this doesn’t take into account books, fees and living expenses–which can often triple the cost.
This is happening at the very moment that young people are being told they must go to college in order to “break into the job market.”
A college education has always been reserved for the children of the wealthy. Today, more and more it is reserved ONLY for them. Some students from working and middle class families may make it, but often only by piling up debt that they will be saddled with for many years to come.
Workers want a quality education for their children, training for jobs, but also access to science and culture. A rationally organized society would provide it.
Past social movements, like the black movement of the sixties, forced the ruling class to open the doors of the universities to many students who would previously have been excluded. In the same way, a new fight when workers stand up for themselves can spill over to change college campuses once again.
Aug 6, 2007
For L.A. County’s uninsured, the long waits to see specialty physicians have gotten even longer since the county closed parts of King hospital in South L.A. last year.
Even before the county downsized the hospital, it took months to see a specialist at King. Now the patients have to be referred to other county hospitals, which are also overwhelmed. Depending on the illness, the wait can be as long as two years–not to mention that patients also have to travel significantly farther, many of them by bus.
It’s no different for patients who may be in severe pain or in need of surgery. The Los Angeles Times found that, at county hospitals, there is a year-long backlog for surgeries deemed “non-emergency,” such as gallbladder and hernia, among others. As a clinic administrator put it, “If it’s not life-threatening when we start, it certainly could be when we finish.”
None of this is any surprise. For health care, the only places the vast majority of the county’s uninsured can afford to go are county-funded clinics. But these clinics don’t have the capability to provide specialty care, so patients are referred to one of the five county hospitals–including King, which is already severely downsized. So that’s less than five hospitals for the county’s over two million uninsured residents!
County officials don’t even pretend they’ll do something about it. “In our system, waiting is just a reality,” said a spokesman of the county’s Department of Health Services to the L.A. Times. He even suggested that the long waits showed the county’s strategy of moving patients from emergency rooms to clinics was working!
The county officials’ excuse for tearing apart King, which may soon be closed down altogether, was the poor quality of care. Yes, the care has been poor, because county officials never intended for it to be good–not at King, and not in any other part of L.A.’s county-run health care system.
Aug 6, 2007
The following article is translated from an article first appearing inLutte Ouvriere, a French revolutionary newspaper.
Britain is experiencing the worst rains and floods since the Great Inundation of March 1947.
It is still impossible to measure the actual damage. The number of deaths remains unknown, not to mention the numbers injured or "missing." According to some sources, 37,000 houses have been destroyed completely or partially. Some sources estimate a much higher number of homes damaged, which will lead to homelessness for tens of thousands in the months ahead.
Infrastructures were never built for this type of situation. But it’s not just the brutal downpour responsible for the spreading inundation, nor for the chaos that followed. In fact, British authorities and certain large companies have shown criminal negligence.
For a number of years, official reports have recommended increasing the budget to carry out the battle against flooding. One aspect of this battle is to create defensive structures, especially in certain cities. It’s a battle that would require more funding. Instead, British authorities cut the budget by 15% over the last seven years!
Another aspect of fighting floods in areas near rivers is to ensure there are no new inhabitants. In this way, these areas can continue to serve as "containment zones’ in case of flooding. To accomplish this task, governments must stand up to developers and other housing speculators and to the pressures from agricultural interests. Although regulations to contain development near flood zones already exist, the last three administrations charged with carrying out the work acted as though they were completely paralyzed. Regions like Oxfordshire, where the price of land is especially high, lack flood prevention measures.
But that’s not the explanation for why 350,000 apartments lacked water for two weeks in Oxfordshire and 45,000 lacked electricity. It doesn’t explain why in the urban area of Yorkshire, the septic lines exploded, pushing their waste into the streets and significantly aggravated the situation.
The real explanation lies in the greed of the private water and electric companies. These water companies are in charge of the septic systems. For some years, supported by local officials, they have told the taxpayers exactly the same story. First they proclaim their "desire" to modernize the infrastructure, but in return, they must raise their rates, for example, by 40%. Then the government, pretending to defend the consumer, says no. Then it agrees to a smaller rate increase. In this way, the government pretends to save the public and the companies justify their refusal to invest.
The water and electric companies, along with the insurance and housing speculators, have already planned how to benefit from the recent downpours. They are already demanding more subsidies from the government because of the "cost of the worsening climate."
Aug 6, 2007
Here is the 2006 pay package for Mayo A. Shattuck, CEO of Constellation Energy, parent company of BGE (Baltimore Gas and Electric):
| Salary & bonus in cash | $11,800,000 |
| Stocks in Constellation | 8,012,980 |
| Perks & other | 245,689 |
| TOTAL | $20,058,669 |
In plain English, he got 20 million bucks in 2006. He’s one guy who doesn’t have to choose between mortgage payments or turning on the AC!
Aug 6, 2007
Using the auto companies’ exaggerated claims of $73 an hour labor cost and the companies’ own statements of income, the UAW"S research department calculated that labor costs, both direct and indirect, amount to only 8.4% of the average price the Big 3 got for its vehicles. So where did the other 91.6% go?
It’s too bad, by the way, that union leaders don’t publicize this fact in the plants to counteract the constant company propaganda about high labor cost.
Between 1976 and today, the company has been taking money from our COLA "supposedly" to pay for health care. Every contract they increased this diversion. And they took our 3% raise last fall.
This adds up to $2.35 an hour "almost $4,900 a year, not counting overtime and more for skilled trades, to pay for health care.
It seems we are paying for most of our own health care–not the company!
There’s a lot more the companies distort when they start exaggerating medical care costs. Every year, they get money from the government to help them pay for it, in the form of a tax deduction.
They don’t mention this when they complain about health care costs.
Aug 6, 2007
The extremely wealthy who run “private equity” or “private investment” firms like to say they will be better at “unlocking value” from companies they buy up. But what does that really mean?
You can see very well if you look at Blackstone Group’s takeover of Travelport Ltd., a group of companies including the Orbitz reservations service. Blackstone borrowed 3.3 billion dollars and charged it to Travelport, not to Blackstone itself. Then Blackstone borrowed another 1.1 billion, charged it to Travelport, and immediately paid it out to Blackstone and its partner investors–as dividends! Blackstone also laid off 841 workers, ten% of the workforce.
This is how they “unlock value.” They put companies deeply into debt to drain out “dividends” on money that was never made! Saddle the companies with debt and interest payments for years to come. Eliminate jobs–and then start looking for another private equity firm, which will buy the remains of the company and try to repeat the draining process.
“Private” equity is really “pirate” equity!
Aug 6, 2007
The 50 top executives in Maryland had incomes worth 1.7 million dollars plus another 2.6 million dollars in stock options and other perks for the year, or a total of 4.3 million dollars on average! Some got much more.
These ridiculous amounts of money paid to the heads of corporations in Maryland are similar to what the top bosses get everywhere. Their high salaries come from our low pay and hard work. And we pay for their high salaries in high prices.
Aug 6, 2007
In preparation for contract negotiations with the UAW, the Big Three have been crying loudly about losses from their automotive units. But it turns out GM and Ford have an interesting little sideline that they lost money on–the speculation in home mortgage loans!
GMAC, GM’s finance arm, reported losses in the first six months from its home lending unit, Residential Capital, of almost 1.2 billion dollars. Ford doesn’t say how much it lost–only that earnings and profits from Ford Credit were down due to “losses related to market valuations from derivatives.”
The auto companies invested in companies that gave out subprime mortgages, betting that the real estate markets would just keep going up, or they bought up bonds based on these mortgages.
They took money away from the production of vehicles–cutting back production of small cars and fleet sales–thinking they could make more money on financial speculation.
The auto company bean counters gambled. And now they’re losing.
There’s no reason auto workers should agree to cover their bets!
Aug 6, 2007
On August 3, American Home Mortgage Investment (AHM) announced that it is going out of business. This is not the first time a mortgage company has failed, but it certainly has sent shock waves through financial markets, because AHM was one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the country.
Until the collapse of AHM, the usual explanation for lender failures was to blame them on the “sub-prime” loans–home loans given to people without a previous history of credit or with bad credit.
As house prices skyrocketed across the country, it became almost impossible for working-class families to buy a house in and near big cities. Sub-prime loans, often for homes at least a two-hour drive away from work, were pushed on people who had no other means to buy a house. But these loans were not really affordable either, because of the adjustable interest rates attached to them. As interest rates went up, more and more families fell behind with their mortgage payments. More and more houses got foreclosed, house sales fell, and so did house prices.
But while it’s true that the collapse of the sub-prime market has contributed to the growing crisis in the real estate market, that’s not the whole story. In fact, it’s not even the main reason behind the real estate crisis, and the collapse of AHM shows this. For AHM also catered to wealthy investors, who were using a particular type of loan AHM had set up to speculate.
One third of AHM’s mortgages were written so as to allow borrowers to pay each month in the first few years less than the interest they owed, by adding the unpaid interest to the principal loan. Unlike the sub-prime loans, which are mainly for people buying their first house, this type of loan is taken out by speculators–investment firms and wealthy individuals who buy and sell houses to turn a quick profit.
This is what turned the real estate market into one big bubble. Mortgages were sold to speculators, who then sold the house quickly again, each time driving up the supposed “value” of the same house and making a quick profit on it. And based on these inflated mortgages, companies like AHM declared big profits and paid their stockholders huge dividends.
But bubbles burst sooner or later. As the real estate market stagnated, more and more of the big speculators started to default on their payments. And that’s what’s really behind the real estate crisis: big speculators not being able to find the money to keep the wheel turning–or rather, the bubble inflating.
AHM itself had borrowed the money it loaned out. So when more and more of AHM’s borrowers defaulted on their payments, the company itself started to have difficulty paying off its own debt to investment banks. In late July, the banks made margin calls–that is, they demanded that AHM pay back its debt instead of paying only part of what it owed, as it had been doing–and AHM came crashing down.
In other words, what really brought AHM down was that it had been speculating on real estate loans–like all big companies do these days.
Does this mean that all these speculators–these parasites who call themselves “investors”–are now impoverished, that they will have to go get a job like everyone else?
No, of course not. Just like it was working-class families who, by not being able to find affordable housing, paid the price for the bubble, these parasites will try to make workers pay the price, by losing their homes, for the bursting of the bubble as well.
And it’s not just new home buyers who’ll pay the price. For the bubble is not limited to real estate. When speculation drives interest rates up, working people get caught in the spiral as well, getting into deeper and deeper debt just to stay afloat. How many families have already mortgaged their homes to pay for their credit-card debts? And as wages fall more and more behind the cost of living, how many will lose their homes?
Countless numbers of them, no doubt, as long as the working class lets these leeches continue to suck blood–not just ours but our children’s as well.
Aug 6, 2007
On August 3, DaimlerChrysler, Cerberus and all their bankers signed off on a complicated deal, handing over 80.1% of Chrysler to Cerberus, a private equity firm. The remaining 19.9% remains with Daimler.
The media made it seem like Daimler had lost money on the deal. Lost money? Not by a long shot!
It’s true that Cerberus said it was paying Daimler only 7.4 billion dollars up front, while Daimler had paid out 36 billion when it bought Chrysler.
In the first place, Daimler didn’t pay out 36 billion. It didn’t pay out anything. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche even bragged that they’d funded the purchase of Chrysler by issuing stock.
But, more important, during the nine years that Daimler owned Chrysler, Chrysler turned in 15 billion dollars in profit to Daimler’s account, and this doesn’t count the many billions more that flowed into DaimlerChrysler’s finance arm from selling Chrysler vehicles, or the money that went to Daimler for “administrative” expenses, etc. etc. etc.
Finally, the “New Chrysler,” now owned by Cerberus, is supposed to “indemnify” Daimler for the debts it owed to Chrysler workers to cover health care expenses of both active and retired workers. Daimler didn’t put the money aside. Legally, it owed more than 19.9 billion dollars, but it put aside less than 2.5 billion, leaving it in debt to Chrysler workers to the tune of almost 17.5 billion.
So what are they going to do to pay off that debt? Cerberus is going to take out big loans in the name of the New Chrysler company–and hand that money over to Daimler. In other words, they are going to skim money off the wealth Chrysler workers will create in the future in order to pay back Daimler for what it should have been paying out for its workers in the past.
Crooked and more crooked. Cerberus is also looking to take out still more debt–to repay itself and its investors for the money it paid to buy Chrysler and to give them a quick profit on the deal. Once again, the debts will be in Chrysler’s name–and once again, the workers will be left holding the bag to repay these debts.
Cerberus will own the company, and it will have paid out no money to get its hands on it. That’s like buying a car from a dealer, and expecting him to pay you for taking it. Ordinarily, that’s called theft.
Daimler and Cerberus are not the only ones to make billions off this deal. The banks involved, first in selling Chrysler to Daimler, and then in selling it back to Cerberus, then in floating bonds and other loans, will also rake in billions in fees, interest, consultant costs, legal costs, etc. These are some of the biggest banks in the world: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.; Citigroup Inc.; Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; Bear Stearns Cos.; and Morgan Stanley. They look at Chrysler as a fountain of gold. The proof is, when they had trouble selling bonds because of problems in the mortgage markets, these banks and investment firms were ready to loan the money to Chrysler themselves.
In March, the Wall Street Journal explained clearly why so many big investors are rushing to buy up and loan money to the auto industry: “Private-Equity investors see in Detroit’s troubled component suppliers and struggling auto giants a way to get access to enormous flows of cash.” Just like a two-bit hoodlum waiting for you to walk out of the bank after cashing your check. They want the workers’ money!
The contract coming due this fall will give workers the way to put an end to this wholesale thievery. An end to concessions, no matter who’s demanding them!
Aug 6, 2007
On August 4, 1997, 185,000 workers from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) struck UPS. Several thousand workers from other locals joined the strike.
The traditional picket lines were accompanied by a number of rallies at different sites around the country, including the UPS headquarters in Atlanta. On Thursday, August 21, rallies were scheduled for at least 30 cities. On two Fridays, Teamsters brought family members out to the picket lines, creating a festive atmosphere.
When UPS began to step up its rhetoric against the strikers, John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, announced that other unions would contribute ten million dollars a week to the IBT to pay strike benefits until the strike was over. This translated to only $55 a week for each striking Teamster, but it nonetheless demonstrated that other unions gave some support to this strike.
The main issue of the strike–the growing proportion of part-time, lower-paid workers in the work force–touched not only UPS workers, but workers in practically every industry in the U.S.
The IBT had first agreed to let UPS hire part-time workers regularly in 1962, when Jimmy Hoffa Sr. was at the helm. The bulk of the part-timers were college students or others who wanted part-time work, so there was little effect on the full-time workers.
The big change in the weight of the part-timers in the UPS system started in 1982 when the IBT agreed to let UPS freeze wages paid to part-timers. That left a gap of about $3.50 an hour between the part-timers and full-timers. With each new contract at UPS, part-time wages remained frozen, and the gap continued to widen.
UPS jumped to take advantage of this gap. By 1986, the proportion of part-timers had jumped to 42% of the UPS workforce; by 1991, part-timers had become the majority of the work force.
“Part-time”? At the time of the strike, over 10,000 UPS “part-timers” worked at least 35 hours a week; some, as many as 45 hours. In other cases, the same worker held two “part-time” jobs: working four hours in the morning for UPS, then working four hours in the afternoon at a different job, but both at UPS.
UPS forced the strike. It proposed to withdraw from contributing to the IBT pension funds. And it refused to budge from its position on part-timers.
UPS was not forced into this confrontation by a weak financial picture. The company was at that time the dominant carrier in the package delivery industry, replacing the Post Office, and doing so at a profit. In 1997 it controlled 80% of ground parcel shipping, and was moving into the air freight and overseas shipping business. Its 19% rate of profit was significantly higher than that of any other company in its industry. In the six years before the strike, UPS had accumulated almost five and a half billion dollars in profit.
UPS acted, in the early days of the strike, like a company intent on pushing a confrontation to its limit. One week after the strike began, UPS chairman James Kelley broke off negotiations, saying the Teamsters were “unrealistic.”
In the second week of the strike, Kelley declared that if the strike went longer than two weeks, there would be 15,000 fewer jobs to come back to. At the end of the second week, Kelley openly threatened to hire scabs.
The Teamsters stuck it out, showing a readiness to take on one of the major corporations in a nationwide strike. A strike like this had not been seen in this country for almost two decades.
From the beginning, the Teamsters said they were making a fight that touched every worker in this country, in one way or another. Teamster president Ron Carey insisted that the strike was “about the future, not just the Teamsters’ future, but about good, full-time jobs for all American working people.”
After two weeks of a strike that was threatening to spread to other workers, the capitalist class of this country had had enough. UPS was pressured to back off on its threats and it transformed a small section of part-timers to full time.
When UPS workers returned to work, they did so with the sense they had accomplished something important. It was the first such victory by a major U.S. union confronting a national corporation in 20 years.
Two decades before, it wouldn’t have seemed like much of a victory. But the situation had changed. Even after six years of “economic expansion” and record high profits for the corporations, concessions were still the norm. In 1997, the UPS settlement reversed a trend going back 15 years regarding the use of a part-time, lower-paid workforce.
With TDU (Teamsters for a Democratic Union) providing many of the troops, the Teamsters, under Carey, organized a different kind of strike at UPS. They had prepared for the strike well in advance, organizing a series of meetings and demonstrations; Carey asked other unions for support; they tried to raise with other workers the issues of their strike which were issues confronting the whole working class; toward the end, they asked other workers to make the same fight, and Carey called on other workers to join a common, work-day demonstration in cities throughout the country. Other workers paid attention to the strike, and to the issues the Teamsters raised.
Business Week wrote: “For the first time in nearly two decades, the public sided with a union, even though its walkout caused major inconveniences. Polls showed the public supported the UPS workers by a 2-to-1 margin. The message: After a six-year economic expansion that has created record corporate profits and vast wealth for investors, Americans are questioning why so many of their countrymen aren’t getting a bigger piece of the pie.”
At the time, it seemed as though the UPS strike might encourage other workers to fight over their own issues.
Instead the government went on the offensive, removing from office the IBT president who had had the effrontery to lead a strike and tying up Carey in a bogus prosecution. When other unions didn’t jump to Carey’s defense, a big opportunity was lost.
But the UPS workers did not lose because they struck. Other workers lost because they didn’t join them and didn’t defend them.
This issue will be raised again when workers break into a fight.
Aug 6, 2007
In July, 2,000 Iraqi civilians died, making it the second deadliest month for Iraqis this year.
This war has created a desperate situation for the Iraqi population. But with the "surge," it’s much more common for a family to have their home broken into. More men, and sometimes women, are taken away for "interrogation"–which means torture. And increasingly, U.S. soldiers commit atrocities against ordinary Iraqis–the inevitable consequence of occupying a country whose population doesn’t want you.
Living conditions for most Iraqis are horrible. The news media recently reported that much of Baghdad hasn’t had running water for two weeks, except for two hours at night. Even then, the water is contaminated and causes illness even after being boiled. And during the summer in Iraq, temperatures sometimes reach 120 degrees!
There were problems with drinking water supplies in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq even before the U.S. invasion–caused mostly by years of U.S. bombing of water treatment plants and the embargo of materials needed to repair the damage. But the situation has gotten much worse over the last four years and five months. Today almost three-quarters of the population has no safe drinking water, up from about half at the time of the U.S. invasion.
A British humanitarian organization reported recently on organizations trying to provide relief services to people in Iraq. Among their findings:
These are only some of the consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
U.S. troops, out of Iraq now!
Aug 6, 2007
On July 25, the U.S. Army started offering so-called “Quick-Ship” bonuses to new recruits: $20,000 if recruits sign up and report for basic training within thirty days; $40,000, if they also agree to stay for four years.
A new recruit could be in and out of basic training and on the ground in Iraq in as little as three to four months.
These bribes–blood money, really–show the army’s problems in finding people ready to fight in this dirty and deadly war, even in a period when good jobs are exceedingly scarce.
Aug 6, 2007
After a second round of negotiations with Iranian diplomats in Baghdad, the Bush administration announced that the two countries had agreed to set up a trilateral “security” committee together with the Iraqi government. It will be the first time the U.S. government has had such sustained formal contacts with Iran since the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations almost three decades ago.
In a certain way, it was an admission of weakness by the U.S.–weakness that Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, tried to cover up with the usual bellicose rhetoric against Iran. He let it be known he had “heatedly” told off Iranian diplomats about their “meddling” in Iraq. “The fact is, and we made it very clear in today’s talks, that over the roughly two months we have actually seen militia-related activities that can be attributed to Iranian support go up and not down,” said Crocker.
In fact, all attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq have gone up. According to the Defense Department’s own statistics, in June the number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, civilians and infrastructure averaged almost 178 per day, which surpassed a previous daily peak of 177 attacks in October 2006, and made June’s daily total the highest since Bush declared major combat operations at an end in May 2003. And while attacks in July went down, which they have done every year in July, they were higher than any previous July.
In other words, the famous “surge” of U.S. troops has not brought stability, it has only provoked more attacks and instability, thus tying down more and more U.S. troops, threatening to spread and destabilize other U.S.-backed regimes in the region.
After more than four years of an ever worsening war, the Bush administration has been forced to look to the Iranian regime to help stabilize the situation for the U.S. in Iraq.
The U.S. and Iranian governments already share many ties in Iraq. The main parties that make up the government headed by Nouri al Maliki, which the U.S. supports, the SCIRI and Dawa parties, as well as their paramilitary wing, the Badr Brigade, have historical ties with the Iranian power structure. So do the U.S.’s Kurdish allies, led by Iraqi President Jalaal Talibani. Talibani backed the Iranian government against the Iraqi government during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
The Iranian regime has long wanted to normalize its relations with the U.S., up to and including getting full diplomatic recognition from the U.S. and an end to the U.S. sanctions. But the current mess in Iraq has finally forced the U.S. to openly deal with Iran.
Iran has benefitted from the weakening position of the U.S. in Iraq to build on its ties with Iraq’s political leaders. Iran was one of the first countries to sign a “friendship treaty” with Iraq’s parliament. Trade between Iraq and Iran has increased in the past year to one billion dollars, with half accounted for in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Iran just finalized a one billion dollar loan deal with Iraq tied to specific investments. Iran just gave Prime Minister Maliki an Airbus 300 jetliner to use for government business.
If Iran comes out of the Iraq War strengthened, this could be a problem for the U.S. and its client states in the region, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia.
This explains the contradictory stance of the U.S. toward Iran: on the one hand, the U.S. opens up negotiations and explores further collaboration with Iran; on the other, it continues to pressure the Iranian regime. It uses economic sanctions, U.N. inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, logistical and financial support of attacks by guerrilla groups operating inside Iran, as well as the U.S. beefed up naval presence in the Persian Gulf and periodic threats to bomb the country. And Saudi Arabia, the U.S. client state, has already beefed up its own presence in Iraq, flooding in intelligence agents, fighters and suicide bombers, according to recent reports in both the L.A. Times and New York Times.
Expect protracted negotiations, mixed with threats up to and including war, to continue.
In the long run, all the people of the Middle East can only be harmed by these deals, just as they are harmed by the war today.